Wednesday, May 16, 2018

New Outside Column!

Speaking of tacky, I mentioned sandals yesterday, which seems to have touched a bunion:

Anonymous said...sandals are stupid. Fuck sandals. I hate them. Where is the rest of your shoe, loser! who died and made you Jesus? Spartacus called, and he wants his shoes back! sandals are for old people and best worn with knee high black dress socks. If you're going to look like some kind of friggin doofus you might as well go all in. Fuck sandals.May 15, 2018 at 2:57 PM

You have to wonder what happened to this person to make them feel so strongly about sandals. Perhaps the commenter is former president George W. Bush:

Ah yes, everyone's a critic, for a little later someone weighed in on my brake levers:

We’ve been designing the world’s finest bib shorts for years, yet we’ve never had control of their interaction with saddles. Until now.

Wait, what? Does it force you to stand up and sit down at set intervals?

I don't know, but apparently Rapha are now pairing certain saddles with certain shorts like some kind of overbearing ass-sommelier:

THE PRO TEAM SADDLE

A saddle for riders who need a lightweight build which is comfortable when riding hard, this race-ready model is the perfect partner for our Pro Team Bib Shorts II. Handmade entirely from carbon, it is designed for comfort at a minimum weight – the narrow version weighs 144 grams. For added pressure relief, a cutout version is available, weighing in even lighter at 141 grams.

They said "comfortable when riding hard." Heh, heh.

But wait, there's more!

YOUR RECOMMENDATION, EXPLAINED

No two riders are the same, yet most saddles are designed and produced as if they were. To challenge conventional wisdom on saddle fitting, Rapha saddles are designed to work in tandem with our bib shorts. Using a few key pieces of information, our fit calculator recommends a saddle and bib short combination tailored to you.

61 comments:

Everybody’s Got One
said...

A second opinion on Evaldas Siskevicius’s Paris-Roubaix finish. He is 29 years old. He has not had a result since 2015, and he is not getting any faster. The end of his racing career is almost upon him, especially since his inability to stay with the peloton eliminates his usefulness as a domestique. He did not ask anyone to watch him, to toast him nor to even care what he was doing. He did not even want to hold up the broom wagon, telling the driver he could go ahead, he was just a guy riding a bike, no longer a rider the race organizers needed to be concerned about. He was in the greatest one-day race there is, and it was most likely his last race. Why not ride it to the end, before starting the next part of your life? As the lingering race fans by the side of the road told him as he fixed the flat, “Bonne aventure.”

now that i'm riding comfortably in the top ten thanks to my rapha prescribed short/saddle concoccyxnion they prescribed, I thought I'd pop by to see what is hot in 'em streets 'cause i'm working on a new build and was going to maybe go 650b again, but it would seem that is OUT, and gold plated 29's with sandals and break levars at weird angals is IN.

i'm throwing all this stuff in the garbage now and starting over if anyone needs an old b-stone rb-1 and a bunch of campy crap that isn't fit for the road anymore apparently.

thansk as always for covering these ever changing biken trends Snob. I could have really embarrassed myself out there by showing up not wearing sandals. Phew!

Old Man Brooks has been making money selling leather saddles that retailed for $100 or a little more. Then they switched to rubber, cheaper then leather, and people are willing to pay MORE. Rapha, always pressing the limit of what bike suckers will pay, is now trying to sell plastic (that’s right plastic) saddles for more than twice what a Brooks goes for.

"Winners never quit.quitters never win.i guess we can throw that old phrase out,now."

It does not follow from the above 2 statements that all non-quitters ALWAYS win. The logical conclusion that can be drawn for the above 2 statements is the winner will come for the group of non-quitters, not from the quitters.

I find quitting quite comfortable. For instance, when attempting to maintain a pace just below "full gas" on a long climb at full, it feels so much better to just say, "Bag it," and proceed at a snail's pace. I've found myself doing more and more of this lately and I highly recommend it. Try it, you will find it makes the climb that much more enjoyable.

Snob, good meeting you at the Castelli race two weeks ago. I was on the anachronistic Diamondback with Campy.

Your brake levers are a little low - although they are in the correct position for operating the brakes while seated, try rotating them up 10-20°. You want the lever to be in line with your index finger when you are in the attack position, or "ass up head down" while riding a steep sloper on an XC bike with a fixed post. It will let you easily reach the brake when your weight is all the way back over the rear tire and your arms are extended.

You know, it's possible that I've been riding long enough to know exactly where I want my brake levers. And because I enjoyed meeting you I will refrain from telling you where you can put your suggestion and how many degrees you can rotate it.

Americans are so dumb. We change the name a little and they take our free bikes just like Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Trump took our wire transfers.

Now that we’ve fucked up their elections, got our guy in as President, the only remaining hurdle to our total subversion of US democracy is destabilizing the bike blogging sector.

Once we get this Bike Snob character and a few other bike bloggers hooked on our ridiculously expensive, wooden bikes, our monkey wrench will be twisted deep into the bowels of the US recreational complex.

I don’t even want to watch these bike bloggers grovel when we tell them they can keep the bikes. So childish these Americans. Special bikes for gravel, tiny payments to influence anti-trust cases.

The Americans will be so disoriented, we won’t hear a peep when we take Kiev. Pedal harder on that artisanal bike, American bitches.

What ever happened to bar ends? They they get chucked in the junk drawer when riser bars came about? I just need to know the exact date everyone else found them so useless for I have yet to give them up.

Makes me nostalgic remembering the time I quit a cross country ride after 1200 some odd miles. Of course I had shimano spd sandals. I've never found a bieking shoe that actually fit my sasquatch feet. At least the open stuff helps keep me piggies from being squished too bad. And the beggers last. wore them yesterday. 'Course the specialed 2001 sports are st6ill kicking as well but the velcro is getting hinky on those.

So which is it? Sociopath or psychopath? I've heard there's a difference but I can't be bothered to look it up.

You're just annoyed because when you're OTB in a race around the park, no one cares or even pays attention to you if you try to keep going. Except maybe to tell you to get off the course since another group wants to start. Instead, here's this guy who's hours behind, playing the suffering-but-tenacious underdog who people are now talking about.

Okay, I looked it up on WebMD and Psychology Today, so now I'm an expert. No offense, but I'd classify you more as a sociopath. "Many sociopaths are able to form an attachment to a particular individual or group, although they have no regard for society in general or its rules. In the eyes of others, sociopaths will appear to be very disturbed." Yeah, sounds like you. Your group is obviously a very dynamic subgroup of cyclists that changes with your mood and depending on what bike you're currently riding. And don't get you started on society's views on helments, driving, tire pressure, you name it.

Oops, got you started. Really, I'm just trying to get another post out if you.

I have to completely agree with your take on dylan thomas; he basically put his poet's hat on and wrote a bit of romantic fiction and to have that poem being praised on another blog the same day is just a bit much.

So did Jesus have SPD's with his sandals? I always thought he used eggbeaters. Dang...now I guess I'll have to switch (WPWJU...Which Pedals Would Jesus Use). But I think he had his brake levers just about where Snobbys are. So there is that. I'll have to get out my equipment and measure/adjust...I'm afraid Jesus would chastise me on my lever position.

Just because you have been doing something a long time, does not mean you know what you’re doing or are any good at it.

It’s time you come to terms with the fact you are not a mountain biker, and never have been. When was the last time you rode on a proper mountain, like if you look at a map it says mount Vesuvius, ele 2750, not ye olde municipal dog park and “mountain biking trails”.

You are a gravel biker. I thought you were embracing this with the ol piney. Every upgrade has moved it farther into surly touring bike territory. It’s a bike that says NO! I don’t get rad or sick with it or hella shreddy or stack footy for da boyz or shred the gnar, I dink around in the woods.

The engin bears more resemblance to that butch hybrid/commuter bike, than a modern 29” hardtailhttps://pdf.giant-bicycles.com/giant/us/bikes/generate-pdf/global/177?filename=giant-bicycles-bike-177.pdf

So this morning as I was getting ready to mount my bikecycle the sky opened up again. I've aged into a bit of a wuss about voluntarily subjecting myself to icky elements while cycling, but I was all dreseed, backpack stuffed, even had my foam hat on - and because of Siskevicius I just had to turn the cranks into the downpour. It reminded me I actually like riding in mid-60's and rain.

You can't spell Siskevicius without Sid Vicious (OK maybe you can but is Siskevicius punk?)

According to science:— A quitter’s bicycle will circle the drain in a clockwise fashion in the Northern Hemisphere.— The best way to determine the optimal brake lever angle involves the use of a sextant, chronometer, and sun tables. Once you’ve established your position on the Earth’s surface, turn the bike away from the sun and rotate the brake levers until they cast a shadow in the shape of a bunny.— A bike made of wood will outlast a bike made of gravel.— Fuckin saddles. How do they work?

ps - I was never a fan of GWB the puppet, but I love the little smirk on his face when he bounces back up from dodging the first shoe/sandle - like "hee hee - missed me you little prick" then the next shoe flies ... a classic

I came here after a long day of looking at silly new old stock crap on the 'bay hoping to get a brake from bike related matters - turns out that was a wise choice as I see no new post and hence, no bike stuff.

Did everybody but me already know that Giant set the standard proportions for frame geometry? Thank you for letting me in on the secret, Anonymous! I'm so glad you never followed through on your myriad threats to quit reading BikeSnobNYC!

Modern "mountain biking" is a marriage of clay court tennis and motocross. That Elgin is a lovely bike and will long continue to be so, long after this year's line-up of trail/all mountain bikes are made to look like antiquated shit. And, that brake lever position clearly aids reading knuckle tattoos.

Gravel and bikepacking, maybe rightly mocked as marketing ploys in name, claw back some of the original spirit of XC lost in today's take your Yamaha to the mini-golf course approach.

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!